This week I talk about: 

• The dispiriting nature of the lockdown

• The disputed science around the Covid-19 threat

• Lord Sumption’s piece in the Mail On Sunday

• Why Liberty is not an optional extra

• Freedom, fulfilment and citizenship

• Will the lockdown change our views on the social contract? 

• Music and art during the lockdown

• Shutting down a string quartet

• Scepticism versus ‘truther’ conspiracies

This week I talk about: 

• Liberty, citizenship and flourishing

• Owning my basic white guy-ness

• Humanism and civil liberties

• Nihilism and wokeness

• Human nature and grand statements

• My problems with the red pill movement

• Good Trump/Bad Trump reflections

• Propaganda everywhere

This week I talk about:

• Why I have had a break in podcasts

• Watching the UK become a ‘command society’

• Democratic audit and hysteria

• How Fear Works by Frank Furedi (book)

• Hysteria and public consent

• Peter Hitchens contra mundum

• Aldous Huxley on propaganda and hysteria

• Vigilance in moments of social weakness

• The hatred of dissent

• Fake dissent and the mainstream media

• A wee song to end off on

This week I talk about:

• Avoiding reactive Culture War clashes

• Presenting your own world view robustly

• Picking your battles

• Feminism and Handmaid’s Tale hysteria

• True gender oppression in Islamic dictatorships

• Bill Burr’s new special

• Political correctness and the woke blackout

• Passive aggressive woke tactics

This week I talk about:

• My recent gig 

• Good songwriters vs showoff musos

• Some interesting songs

• Cultivating individuality

• Mill, Wilde and eccentricity

• Tulsi Gabbard (hot) and free speech

• Identity politics and alarmist media

• The real enemy is not Trump or Boris

This week I talk about:

• Dave Chappelle’s new special

• Speaking truth to power

• How the woke types became a new aristocracy 

• The loss of religion

• Divided times and wokeness

• Douglas Murray on mob outrage

• The moral vacuum and ideology

This week I talk about:

• Bank holiday bohemianism

• Creative routines

• Introverts and extroverts

• Personhood and relationships

• The modern tendency to undermine

• Elvis and perfect imperfection

This week I talk about:

• My weekend in Bradford

• Provincial architecture

• A run-in with a train attendant

• Finding some old books from uni

• The Delian League of ancient Greece

• The Athenian ‘Empire” and the EU

• Plans for more music

• Forthcoming book review

This week I talk about:

• Different creative processes

• The chaos of the artistic life

• Anxiety and fear

• Jordan Peterson on fear and suffering

• The role of art and belief systems

• Chaos, order and being in the zone

This week I talk about: 

• More Beatles geeking out

• Jordan Peterson’s impact on me

• Ideological thinking vs authentic thinking

• Reactive culture and nuance

• American shootings and ideological reaction